Michael Golrick tries to do the impossible…by Meredith Farkas

I’ve been embarassed to admit that I understand almost nothing about how ALA and the divisions, roundtables, offices, council, etc. fit together. When Michael Golrick said he was going to write some sort of ALA 101 piece in response to my gripes about the organization, I was skeptical. But here it is in all of its eight-party glory. And for the monumental task he took on, Michael’s done a really good job of it! I wish ALA would publish something like this! If you’re a new member of ALA or if you just joined because it was “the thing to do” or to get the magazines, take a look at what Michael has written here. Really good stuff. I understand so much more now!

Michael has been on ALA Council for 10 years and he is up for reelection this year. Anyone who would write such a terrific introduction to ALA has earned my vote! His committment to the orgnization and the profession jumps off the page (er, computer screen). Other folks I’m “liking” for ALA Council include Ria Newhouse, Heidi Dolamore, Rochelle Hartman and Samantha Schmehl Hines. I’m sure there are a lot of other great folks on that candidate list, but these are folks I know and think really rock.

And I’m really glad to see people using the ALA New Orleans Wiki! With your help, it is going to be a terrific resource for everyone attending the conference. And I am told by reliable sources in the ALA that the wiki will be advertised PROMINENTLY on the conference Web site soon. Right now, it’s a bit buried.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Meredith Farkas

Meredith Farkas is a faculty librarian at Portland Community College in Oregon and an adjunct faculty member at San Jose State University's SLIS program. She is the author of the book “Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication and Community Online” (Information Today, 2007) and writes the monthly column “Technology in Practice” for American Libraries. Meredith was honored in 2014 with the ACRL Instruction Section Innovation Award, in 2008 and 2011 with the WISE Excellence in Online Education Award and in 2009 with the LITA/Library Hi Tech award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology. She has been writing the blog Information Wants to be Free since 2004.

5 Comments

Thanks Meredith. My one regret so far is that I haven’t got a lot of questions. did I really cover everything? I know that Walt Crawford added a great comment about how LITA is organized. You (or others) are welcome to privately email me questions for future postings.